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Did CBS President Les Moonves take a shot at Katie Couric?

October 5, 2010 | 3:49
pm

Does Les Moonves have a beef with Katie Couric? The Daily Texan reports that the CBS honcho took a swipe at the anchor on Monday. "There is nothing that Katie Couric is saying that everybody doesn’t know already,” he told a crowd at the University of Texas.

Moonves made the comments on the Austin campus while conducting a lecture called “The Networks Strike Back: How Old Media Has Adapted to the New World.” During his speech, he denied that the Internet would eventually destroy broadcast television, pointing to instead Hulu, GoogleTV, Apple Rental System, Netflix and Amazon as technological advancements that will aid, not replace, the industry. Couric, he said, was just doing her part to keep up with the pace of the Internet by embracing Twitter and Facebook, as well as hosting an online-only interviewing program called @KatieCouric.

But Moonves also confessed that viewers just aren't watching the networks like they used to. "People are getting their news elsewhere," he admitted.

Those must have felt like fighting words for Couric, whose future at CBS is not secure. Her contract expires at the end of May, and Moonves suggested that it wouldn't be renewed at the same rate. "The Katie Couric deal will be the last big deal of that kind ever done," he said, blaming loss of revenue. "Those days are over."